Tibetan Suitcase

by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa

Dawa Tashi is an India-born Tibetan. His parents fled Tibet when the Chinese
invaded, and Dawa has grown up in the quiet, verdant Indian Himalayas.
When Dawa applies to a well-known university in America to pursue a
course in creative writing, his hitherto ordinary life changes dramatically.
At the university he befriends, and falls in love with, Iris Pennington, an
unusual American student who is studying Buddhist literature. He also comes
in contact with Khenchen Sangpo, a renowned scholar of Buddhism and a
reincarnated Rinpoche himself.
Circumstances lead Dawa back to India too soon, but the connections he
makes take his life into many new directions. With his Tibetan suitcase always
by his side, he now undertakes many journeys. Some, with Iris and Khenchen,
take him deeper into the mystical and mysterious world of Buddhist
scholarship. Other journeys take him back to his roots, making him question
his life’s directions.
Told in the form of letters and journal entries, Tibetan Suitcase is a deeply
moving novel about love and longing; about those who belong nowhere; about
an existence without a motherland and negotiating in-between worlds.
‘Tsering Namgyal explores and explains the psychology of exile-born Tibetans
and with great empathy articulates their frustrations, anger and hopes for
themselves and for Tibet.’—Thubten Samphel, author of Copper Mountain
‘In this exquisitely crafted novel, Tsering Namgyal offers us a shapeshifting
meditation on love, loss, hope and the power of karma.’—Palash Krishna
Mehrotra, author The Butterfly Generation and Eunuch Park

217 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 6, 2024

Reviews

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw the cover of this book on the gram, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

I dived into it not knowing much, except that it was something about Tibet. Having never read anything about the Country or its culture, I thought it would be interesting.

The Novel is about the Tibetan people and its told via diary entries, letters and other documents collected in a suitcase by a journalist.
The suitcase is a depiction of carrying the memories of ones Homeland.

The story follows Dawa Tashi, who is an Indian Born Tibetan. He questions is identity and the complexities of a life in exile as he navigates his life from India to travelling abroad and then returning back.
As the book progresses, characters, like Iris, Brent, Kenchen and others make their way in the novel.
The book is set across India, America and Hongkong.
It gives a peak into the Religion, the simple food, the studies, and politics surrounding them.
The theme of this book is exile and identity.

Lines I liked " what have we inherited from our parents and forefathers - nothing but trauma, sadness and loss, all wrapped in a beautiful language."
'Let the creative juices flow. When you do not have a home, you must learn to seek asylum in pages"

I liked reading this semi autobiography with some fiction blended. It gave me an understanding of this country, the beliefs and the life they live.

[Idea Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very unusual read for me. I really enjoy the epistolary format, in which this book is written - a collection of letters, documents and diary accounts. As with Memoirs of a Geisha, I initially mistook this for being an actual memoir, rather than a story told in the form of a memoir. But the warm, first person account of a person’s world was a good choice to bring out the complexity of a several generations displaced Tibetan people.

I picked up this book because I’m consciously trying to read beyond what automatically comes my way - English books written by and about white British & American people. Asia and even more so The Indian Subcontinent are rich with hidden treasures of storytelling techniques, erased histories and deeper thinking models than what popular media has homogenised for us. Asian cultures navigate relationships very differently and this includes our relationships with land, community and belief as much as with other people. What happens when a person finds no recognition of their existence even in the nuanced, multi-faith diversity of Asia?

One might expect such a story to be full of anguish but it read like a book version of the smile you see on the faces of child monks in the media narratives about Tibetan Buddhism. Full of joy and delicate wit. Alternately, the title may also make it sound like a dry treatise on a religion. The characters in the story are informed by the study of Tibetan Buddhism and their lives revolve around how they pursue it. But for me, traumatised by the violence of organised religion in the world today, this still felt like a gentle introduction. Living in India which has been home to many linguistic, geographic and religious cultures which are all now in ruinous conflict, this book felt like an additional dimension. I was surprised at how easy it was to read. It still took me several weeks longer than I usually wood because I wanted to ponder the ideas that came written between the lines.

What does the idea of a country really mean? When a group of people self-identify as one thing, what is the morality of larger, more powerful groups claiming them as property? And how is this justified by spiritual ethics, the foundation of this self-identified group?

This book is an eye-opener for anyone who assumed that Buddhism was just quietly meditating under a Bodhi tree like Prince Sidharth. There’s nothing quiet or meditative about the territory dispute being waged over the land, its people or the history of this religion. As this book brings out, this drama is now being enacted on an international stage, with religious leaders in hiding or being arrested on entry to where they identify as homeland and Western governments and universities getting involved.

I have complicated feelings about the role of the West in this. Historically white Europeans caused the most damage across continents in the past few centuries. We can think of this quest to highlight intellect and spiritual contributions across the world as a form of reparations. Or we can recognise that there is a capitalist/power motive to each of these moves. Would the US be quite as interested in Tibet, had it not been able to cast China as the opponent?

And while we’re thinking on this macro global level, it becomes easy to slot people of religion as sexless (Christian construct), vegetarian (Brahimin thought) and otherwise templatised founts of wisdom. It becomes harder to think of them as human beings who experience rage, desire, jealousy, pride, disappointment, vindication or disillusionment. We watch Dawa Tashi amble through all of these along with his friend Brent, his sometimes girlfriend Iris, his romantic/spiritual rival Pema and his mentor Khenchen Sangpo. Is he still a good student if he thinks uncharitably of his respected teacher in his mind? Is he being true to his faith if he dislikes a man for being more attractive to women? Is he being a better or worse Buddhist when his achievements seem paltry and his ambition low? And through it all, Dawa Tashi feels human in the most likeable of ways. Just like one of us.

This is a book that I will want to read again at a different point in my life because it serves as such a good mirror of my own views on faith, people, ownership and home.

[Pallavi Dash · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much of culture and mind religion spirituality hidden between The Himalaya’s own Tibet , a story desperately being told to the world without avail, oh so many great minds dying with the unfulfilled dream of returning to the place they never could call home . The book felt a bit rushed but somehow incompletely full .